[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 43 (Monday, March 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1766-S1767]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE EQUALITY ACT
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I speak now to a bill we will introduce
this Wednesday, the Equality Act. The Equality Act will be introduced
by a group of us in the Senate and by another group led by Congressman
Cicilline in the House.
It is an appropriate moment for us to ponder in this Chamber why this
piece of legislation is part of our American journey toward the vision
of opportunity for all and why we all should be supporting this
beautiful legislative proposal.
My involvement in the Equality Act began in my home State of Oregon,
when I was serving in the legislature there, and we had the question of
how can we change the systematic discrimination against our LGBTQ
brothers and sisters. How can we give them the same opportunity
everyone else has?
So we came together and said we should do an Oregon Equality Act, an
Oregon Equality Act that would create the same basic protections the
Civil Rights Act has for race and gender and ethnicity.
We went about doing that. I was the speaker. I worked very hard to
make that happen, and we succeeded. We ended discrimination in Oregon
based on who you are or whom you love. Discrimination should be ended
across the whole country.
I arrived here in January 2009, and I was assigned to the Health,
Education,
[[Page S1767]]
Labor, and Pensions Committee--the Health Committee. I asked Senator
Kennedy if I could possibly serve on this committee to help fight for
health and education and labor, and he arranged that. I will never
forget having his voicemail on my phone saying: Yes, you are a member
of the committee.
A few months later came the real surprise. Senator Kennedy was
struggling with the brain cancer that killed him later that year, and
through his team, he asked me to take on one of his civil rights bills,
the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
That was to end discrimination for LGBTQ Americans in employment,
give them a fair chance to get a job here. Well, this is something that
had been part of our Equality Act in Oregon. We had gotten that done,
and because I helped lead that fight, he asked me to take over and lead
the fight to end employment nondiscrimination.
That was 2009. It took 4 years of work--work with the community and
work with our legislators inside this building. Then, finally, in 2013,
the time was ripe to put it on the floor and have this debate. This
Chamber, with the supermajority, bipartisan vote, said, yes, let's end
discrimination in employment, and we passed the Employment Non-
Discrimination Act.
Then I went over to the House, and it died without consideration. I
got together with the advocates and asked, where do we go from here
with the House not acting? Do we simply continue to reintroduce the
Employment Non-Discrimination Act--which had been first introduced in
1996, first considered on this floor and almost passed just one vote
short in 1998. Do we continue to do that?
Out of that conversation, we developed a different vision. Let's do a
full Equality Act like Oregon has done, like a number of other States
have done and end discrimination not just in one sector or another, not
just in places of accommodation, not just in financial transactions,
not just in serving on a jury, not just in terms of housing, not just
in terms of employment, let's base the Equality Act on providing the
full spectrum, the full measure of protection for opportunity.
I thought that was a pretty good idea. Later that year, I introduced
the Equality Act in partnership with many others. We laid out that
first Equality Act in the Johnson Room--the Johnson Room, which looks
out at the Supreme Court and reminds us of 1964. In 1964, when the
Civil Rights Act was passed, driven forward by President Johnson, who
came from Texas, who came from the South, and said: It is time to end
discrimination in the United States of America based on race and gender
and ethnicity. He drove that legislation through, and it has been a
foundation we haven't questioned since because we know it is right. We
know it is part of this journey of the United States of America going
back to our Declaration of Independence, going back to our
Constitution--a vision of opportunity for all and liberty for all.
We know it was imperfect, and we have worked now for almost two and a
half centuries to perfect that vision of opportunity. Senator Ted
Kennedy once said: ``The promise of America will never be fulfilled as
long as justice is denied to even one among us.'' The promise of
America--that promise of America that Thomas Jefferson so eloquently
put, in 1776--is a vision where we are all created equal, with
``unalienable Rights . . . Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.''
How can that vision be propelled, sustained, and promoted if, in
fact, as you pursue your life, the door is slammed shut on you, saying,
``No. There is opportunity for that individual but not you,'' and the
door is slammed shut--liberty for that person but not you, and the door
is slammed shut.
We have come to understand that is just wrong. It is completely
incompatible with the vision that was laid out, the vision of our
Declaration and the vision of our Constitution.
In fact, in this Chamber, we start with a pledge, and we talk about
one Nation under God with liberty and justice for all. Classrooms
across the country start their day with a pledge of liberty and justice
for all, but what is liberty if the door is slammed shut? That is the
denial of liberty. That is the opposite of freedom. That is the
crushing of opportunity.
So the story of America goes forward. The fight goes forward. We had
the 1964 Civil Rights Act that was a culmination itself of decades of
work. We had the voting rights struggle during the same time period,
and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. We fought a number of battles--
battles of discrimination against those with disabilities. We fought
for workers' rights, but our LGBTQ brothers and sisters still face
discrimination all across this country. We are still in a situation
where so many doors are slammed shut.
We have had a lot of progress in the last 10 years. Ten years ago, we
had the Defense of Marriage Act, and now we don't. We had don't ask,
don't tell in the military, and now we don't. We had only three States
that recognized same-sex marriage, and now it is the law of the land as
the Supreme Court weighed in and said it is required by the vision of
our Constitution.
Discrimination in all kinds of ways is still legal in 29 States--more
than half the country. In more than half the country, you can be
married in the morning, denied service at a restaurant for lunch, fired
from your job in the afternoon, and kicked out of your apartment that
night because discrimination is still legal against LGBTQ Americans in
29 States.
LBJ gave a definition of freedom. He said: ``Freedom is the right to
be treated in every part of our national life as a person equal in
dignity and promise to all others.'' Discrimination is the opposite of
freedom.
Let freedom ring in this Chamber as we introduce the Equality Act
later this week. Let freedom ring down the hall as the House of
Representatives holds a debate in committee and on the floor in the
months to come, and when that freedom bell rings so loudly that they
pass that bill, the Equality Act in that Chamber, let them bring it
down this hallway right into the Senate; that we might debate the same
and put an end to the extraordinary, disgraceful discrimination that
still marks the lives and slams the doors shut on millions and millions
of Americans every single day.
I yield the floor.
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